Peace in a tea cup

It was our seventh wedding anniversary and we had invited family members for dinner.

It was our seventh wedding anniversary and we had invited family members for dinner. I had cut all the vegetables and laid out the ingredients — which had been purchased by my wife, neatly in plates. We were cooking an elaborate vegetarian meal.

My parents arrived earlier than the others and found us in the kitchen. This is not a usual scene, I confess with some shame. But I am learning to cook to ease the burden on my wife. My mother clearly did not enjoy seeing her son in the kitchen. It didn’t take her too long to suggest that we all go out to eat in a restaurant. While my wife mumbled something about “mother’s boy”, I insisted that we would cook and ushered Mom out of the kitchen. The meal came out pretty well — no left-overs were a compliment to our cooking and our judgment.

The next day I was relating Mom’s reaction to my cooking to a friend when his wife told me a story that I would like to share with everybody, because it concerns the ma-in-law.

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“This woman,” said our friend’s wife, “was having a tough time with her mother-in-law who was staying with them for three weeks. The son was very fond of tea and his wife didn’t drink tea at all. Being a working couple, they leave early in the morning and come back in the evening. When she gets back, this woman has to prepare the dinner, after she takes care of the evening tea. But, instead of helping out, the mother-in-law complained that her son, who was so fond of only one thing — tea — got no tea in the morning before he left for office. So, after giving it some thought, my friend decided that since the mother-in-law was staying over for a short time, it would be best not to make a scene. She hatched a plan that would at least take care of this complaint.

“The plan worked to perfection, and the mother-in-law, pleased that she had been victorious, didn’t complain about anything else during her stay. The plan? Well, her mother-in-law was a late riser. So every evening, this woman cunningly would hide one of the unwashed cups from the evening tea and, before leaving for her morning shift, put the used tea cup in the kitchen sink!”